The epidemiology of chronic hepatitis C infection in survivors of childhood cancer: an update of the St Jude Children's Research Hospital hepatitis C seropositive cohort

Natural course of HCV infection in childhood cancer survivors

“…[22] The percentage of patients affected by cirrhosis is quite different from the ones found in the study of Castellino et al [21] (13.6% versus 3% in our cohort) after a comparable length of follow-up. Moreover, in this study, the degree of fibrosis, even if evaluated with a different histological classification, was mainly moderate (35.6%) other than mild, showing global worse histological features.…”

“…Moreover, in this study, the degree of fibrosis, even if evaluated with a different histological classification, was mainly moderate (35.6%) other than mild, showing global worse histological features. The difference between the more aggressive outcomes of hepatic C in American cohorts than in European or Japanese ones has been already pointed out even in noncancer patients [9,13,16,17,21,30]. Recent studies underlined the predisposition to develop advanced stages of fibrosis and cirrhosis in carriers of certain genetic polymorphisms linked to the ethnical origins.…”

“…Moreover, chemotherapy, radiotherapy, and immunosuppression with cyclosporin or its analogs may cause hepatic damage either by a direct toxic action on the liver or by an indirect effect of the reduced immunological ability in controlling viral replication [18][19][20]. This is why patients who acquired HCV infection during treatment for childhood cancer may represent a very peculiar population since they were infected while exposed to several factors that could have enhanced hepatic damage [21][22][23][24].…”

Liver disease in chelated transfusion-dependent thalassemics: the role of iron overload and chronic hepatitis C

“…18 Among our 58 patients with active chronic hepatitis C, 14 patients (24%) had cirrhosis. Patients with mild or moderate fibrosis frequently had low values of serum ferritin and normal LIC, while patients with severe liver fibrosis or cirrhosis more frequently had values of serum ferritin higher than 2,500 ng/mL and a median LIC value 2.9 mg/gr dry liver weight.…”

Treatment of hepatitis C in a pediatric patient using simeprevir and sofosbuvir immediately after an umbilical cord blood transplantation

“…Long term, there is also an increased risk for developing cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma at an accelerated rate. 1,5,6 The standard therapy for HCV infections has been pegylated IFN-α and ribavirin. 7 IFN-α and ribavirin therapy is poorly tolerated and the efficacy is suboptimal with only~50% of HSCT patients achieving a sustained viral response.…”